First person Point of view and Omniscient View

First Person- One of the characters tells the story
Omniscient- An omniscient or all knowing narrator tells the sotory, also using the third person pronouns. This narrator instead of focusing on one chacater only, often tells us everything about many characters.
The Things they Carried" is a recolection of stories told by tim O'brian about his time spent fighting in the Vietnam War. He makes himself one of the characters and he tells most of the stories from him own view point. However, in chapters such as Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong, Speaking of courage and some of the other chapters, different characters tell a story that they expereinced or an all knowing narrator will tell their stoy. these characters include, Jimmy cross, Norman Bowker, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Henry Dobbins, and Kiowa.

Begining " The Things They Carried"

I have to say I enjoyed reading this book much more than The Sun Also Rises. I think this is because it was more easily understood and more modern. The themes in this book were universal and these events took place less than fifty years ago. I found two things challenging about this book. One, trying to figure out which stories were true and which one's were symbolic or exaggerated. The author tells us how true war stories are never really true and this is demonstrated through out the book. Two, figuring out what the symbols and metaphors actually meant. This was a challenge since so much of the book was symbolic. never the less I enjoyed this book and learned alot about the Vietnam War.

forshadowing

ok I thought i had twenty posts but i jsut looked and i only have 19 isn't athat great. -the use of hints and clues to suggest what will happen later in the story- in the chapter before brett rns off with Romero, she talks about how much she likes his clothing and how handsome he is. Also at the begining of one chapter jake says he ends up with the bull's ear in his handkercheif and then it tells the story up to that point. this provides a variety in the story telling and keeps the audience intersted. and now i think i'm done fo rizel!!

My reaction to the book

If i look at this story as it is making fun of the mundane lives that people lead and the fact that we create problems for ourselves and make the same mistakes over and over again; then i kind of like it. the author demonstrated this perspective very clearly and he also presents social problems of this era and how people simply ignore these issues. This is the time less and universal theme. o the other hand the story itself in which jake and brett are in love and the crazy story behind that i think is amusing at first but then it was just frustrating. why couldn't brett stop being a tramp and hurting people!? But the truth is brett and jake may not have even seen that they were making these mistakes repeatedly. it seems obvious to the spectator but not when one is really living it. this is how the real world is we are stupid and we keep doing the same things and to the spectator it must be extremely frustrating.

thend

the end of the book i found to be slightly disapointing. I was hoping that some how either jake would end up with brett or find a new girls who would except him. unfortunately nothing seemed to really change. brett remained sleeping around with other men and all of the characters seem to still be confused and unhappy even more so then they were at the begining of the book. The characters have tried to work problems out but everything failed and turned out even worse than original. this is different from most stories because a problem is presented and in the end it is resolved but in this case the problem is on-going and can not really be resolved easily so the people keep making the same mistakes.

Flat character

-has only one or twso personality traits. They are one dimensional like a piece of cardboard. they can be summed up in one phrase- There are a plethora of characters in this strory. many of these characters were background characters tht we only hear of once and were never brought up again. However, the man in spain who likes bull fighting seems to come up again and again. he only has one personality trait and that is that he is obsessed with bull fighting. on the other hand i think he symbolizes something. he feels that jake is a true bull fighter spirtit and he is disapointed of jakes friend choice even though he never says it. i think he represents jake's subconscience that tells him he is better than this and can do better.

Static character

-Is one who does not change much in the course of a story- In many stories the main character under goes a dramatic life lesson where their entire outlook is turned around. However this is often not how real life works. people may under go a life changing experience but they may not learn from it and it is nearly impossible to change your life right of the bat. I think this book was more realistic in that aspect. It shows how the characters have nothing really interesting going on for the majority of their time and important things happen with long periods of time in between. So even though Jake our main character has some dramatic experiences he changes very little. In my opinion Jake is a static character. At the beginning of the book he is madly in love with Brett and will do anything for her and at the end of the book he is the exact same way even after all she has put him through.